The Third Twin Page 0,151

is it?"

"Security," came a man's voice. "Did you put that glass there?"

"Yes."

"May I ask why?"

"So nobody could sneak up on me. I get nervous working here late."

"Well, I ain't gonna sweep it up. I ain't a cleaner."

"Okay, just leave it."

"Are you on your own, miss?"

"Yes."

"I'll just look around."

"Be my guest."

Jeannie took hold of the door handle with both hands. If he tried to open it, she would prevent him.

She heard him walking around the lab. "What kind of work are you doing, anyway?" His voice was very close.

Lisa was farther away. "I'd love to talk, but I just don't have time, I'm really busy."

If she wasn't busy, buster, she wouldn't be here in the middle of the goddamn night, so why don't you just butt out and leave her be?

"Okay, no problem." His voice was right outside the door. "What's in here?"

Jeannie grasped the handle firmly and pulled upward, ready to resist pressure.

"That's where we keep the radioactive virus chromosomes," Lisa said. "It's probably quite safe, though, you can go in if it's not locked."

Jeannie suppressed a hysterical laugh. There was no such thing as a radioactive virus chromosome.

"I guess I'll skip it," the guard said. Jeannie was about to relax her grip on the door handle when she felt sudden pressure. She pulled upward with all her might. "It's locked, anyway," he said.

There was a pause. When next he spoke his voice was distant, and Jeannie relaxed. "If you get lonely, come on over to the guardhouse. I'll make you a cup of coffee."

"Thanks," Lisa said.

Jeannie's tension began to ease, but she cautiously stayed where she was, waiting for the all clear. After a couple of minutes Lisa opened the door. "He's left the building," she said.

They went back to the phones.

Murray Claud was another unusual name, and they tracked him down quickly. It was Jeannie who made the call. Murray Claud Sr. told her, in a voice full of bitterness and bewilderment, that his son had been jailed in Athens three years ago, after a knife fight in a taverna, and would not be released until January at the earliest. "That boy could have been anything," he said. "Astronaut. Nobel Prize winner. Movie star. President of the United States. He has brains, charm, and good looks. And he threw it away. Just threw it all away."

She understood the father's pain. He thought he was responsible. She was sorely tempted to tell him the truth, but she was unprepared, and anyway there was no time. She promised herself she would call him again, one day, and give him what consolation she could. Then she hung up.

They left Harvey Jones until last because they knew he would be the hardest.

Jeannie was daunted to find there were almost a million Joneses in America, and H. was a common initial. His middle name was John. He had been born at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., so Jeannie and Lisa began by calling every Harvey Jones, every H. J. Jones, and every H. Jones in the Washington phone book. They did not find one who had been born approximately twenty-two years ago at Walter Reed; but, worse, they accumulated a long list of maybes: people who did not answer their phones.

Once again Jeannie began to doubt whether this would work. They had three unresolved George Dassaults and now twenty or thirty H. Joneses. Her approach was theoretically sound, but if people did not answer their phones she could not question them. Her eyes were getting bleary and she was feeling jumpy from too much coffee and no sleep.

At four A.M.. she and Lisa began on the Philadelphia Joneses.

At four-thirty Jeannie found him.

She thought it was going to be another maybe. The phone rang four times, then there was the characteristic pause and click of an answering machine. But the voice on the machine was eerily familiar. "You've reached Harvey Jones's place," the message said, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. It was like listening to Steve: the pitch of the voice, the diction, and the phrasing were all Steve's. "I can't come to the phone right now, so please leave a message after the long tone."

Jeannie hung up and checked the address. It was an apartment on Spruce Street, in University City, not far from the Aventine Clinic. She noticed her hands were shaking. It was because she wanted to get him by the throat.

"I've found him," she said to Lisa.

"Oh, my God."

"It's a machine, but it's